# Opinion on these freeware net accelerators. **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 23, 2003, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opinion-on-these-freeware-net-accelerators/214796 "2003-11-23T04:13:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Nobody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@Nobody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nobody)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2003, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opinion-on-these-freeware-net-accelerators/214796/1 "2003-11-23T04:13:06Z")
I tried Askar, Net Sonic, and NetAccelerator, and wasn’t too pleased with them (well actually Askar seemed to speed up my WinMX connection) but anyway, I have a list of new freeware web accelerators, and If any of you use, have used, or know about any of these, which one would you choose? Marketscore Internet Accelerator Webcelerator WebRifle Intelli-Dial-UP Net Lightning Lite iSpeed Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Darkhold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@Darkhold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darkhold)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2003, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opinion-on-these-freeware-net-accelerators/214796/2 "2003-11-23T05:41:12Z")
NetAccelerators are mostly junk. (they can help a little but I’ve never noticed anything to write home about) I assume you scanned for adware/spyware after you tried these out? The few I’ve tried put all sorts of stuff on my comp. ---
**Author:** ![Nobody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@Nobody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nobody)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2003, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opinion-on-these-freeware-net-accelerators/214796/3 "2003-11-23T06:25:57Z")
Well, I just tried Webcelerator. Damn, talk about junk, with it enabled, I couldn’t bring up **any** web page. All of them would give me an error message that the page I was looking for was busy or couldn’t be found. That’s one to scrach off of my list. As for adware/spyware, for a while, Askar was fine, but then it started hijacking my attempts to use Google. Anyway, as long as I don’t download anything that gives me adware/spyware, I’m willing to give it a try. ---
**Author:** ![DreadCthulhu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/db5fbb/32.png) [@DreadCthulhu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DreadCthulhu)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2003, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opinion-on-these-freeware-net-accelerators/214796/4 "2003-11-23T06:26:23Z")
At best, you will get a very marginal speed increase with mostly text based pages and files. Of course, they don’t take that long to download anyways. Larger files where a speed-up would help - images, mp3’s, & movies are already very compressed, and a net accelerator wouldn’t do a thing to speed them up. Also, as \*\* Darkhold \*\* mentioned, these types of programs are chock-full of spyware. I really reccomend you get Ad-Aware or Spybot and try cleaning your machine out. ---
**Author:** ![Nobody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@Nobody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nobody)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2003, 6:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opinion-on-these-freeware-net-accelerators/214796/5 "2003-11-23T06:31:39Z")
Actually, I have both, and don’t worry, I will use them. Also, what about accelerators that cache the web sites you’ve been at, and try to preload links you may go to, doesn’t that help much? ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2003, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opinion-on-these-freeware-net-accelerators/214796/6 "2003-11-23T17:14:08Z")
These are all gimmick software (at best) targetted for naive computer users. Good browsers (like Opera) already optimize things. ---
**Author:** ![Nobody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@Nobody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nobody)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2003, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opinion-on-these-freeware-net-accelerators/214796/7 "2003-11-23T17:39:56Z")
Alright, I get the message, thanks.